> The main reason behind it all, was realising I’d been too narrowly focussed on one part of my life, work and building a business, and that I’d neglected other areas.

Building a successful business from scratch is incredibly hard, and therefore requires sacrifice in other areas of your life. Doing a startup is never an optimization for personal happiness.

I think raising VC will only make the problem worse. They're expecting a unicorn, which requires significantly more personal sacrifice than a (potentially) less ambitious bootstrapped business.

Fred, you mentioned that you felt unhappy while abroad. Maybe the problem isn't with bootstrapping, but it's with being away from friends/family? After a year of traveling I felt similarly, and we've been spending several months back home with friends/family. Still bootstrapping – doing better now. Just an idea.